well I think it goes something like this....of course our positions are moral, logical, fair, and address the important issues that everyone cares about, and most importantly are superior in every way to those other guys, and therefore it is obvious that everyone would vote for us. So of course we won the election.

If there is one thing that the blogosphere does not need it is another one sided, subjective, partisan, my team at any cost cheerleader.

At times, your blog can be a very positive experience for your readers. On those occasions you attempt to capture insight by combining your rational ideas with the many others that you encounter and link too.

However, this latest entry is the complete opposite of anything that could be construed as positive. Look at your title to this post "DEMOCRATS DELEGITIMIZING DEMOCRACY". At least Drudge makes a slight attempt at being objective with his report of the comments by Teresa Heinz Kerry. You, however, drop any pretense of objectivity by immediately casting stones at an entire group because of the comments of one member of that group. If this wasn't bad enough you then indicate with this blog title that her comments all by themselves attempt to "Delegitimize" our democracy.

The purpose of this entry is quite clear. It was simply to difficult today for you to write something that would enlighten your readers so you took the easy course. You misrepresented the legitimate concerns of one citizen of this country, who is fortunate enough to have the microphone, and turned them into an attack on our democracy from an entire group of democrats.

In Drudge's story there was a specific assertion made by Teresa that "Two hard-right Republican brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States". What didn't you follow up on the legitimacy of this comment if you wanted to act in a positive way. No, that would require a bit of work on your part. It is much easier for you to encapsulate your partisan subjectivity in a blog title that itself appears to me to be a baseless and wild-eyed charge of the kind often hurled in barroom bull sessions among loudmouth drunkards.

Mark, try to put at least 8 hours between the bar and your future posts.

Since your ire was most likely raised by my having generalized broadly off of Heinz-Kerry I'll start by conceding that was pretty sloppy of me. I was writing in haste and disgust at the time and I realize that the behavior H-K was engaging in is really that of the wingnuts within the Democratic Party and not all Democrats. You're right to take me task in that regard.

For Heinz-Kerry's specific charge, it was a reckless, irresponsible and dangerous thing to do without evidence of some kind of conspiracy. Particularly as she is the wife of the losing candidate.

It's a wild charge designed to imply that Bush didn't " really" win the election except by cheating deus ex machina. Repeated after every election cycle, things like this are going to have a corrosive effect on our democracy and cultivate an " anything goes" mentality on both sides of the divide.

Had Heinz-Kerry made a careful argument about paperless machine voting being a really bad idea, I'd have treated her argument with respect ( incidentally, I agree in principle that these machines are a potential nest of problems) because she would have had a valid point to make. Her allusion of a stolen election though was way out of bounds.

She is not meant for politics. She would have been happier, and the entire nation less worried, if she was kept out of site during the campaign. Great presidents can have unstable wives -- the Lincolns are proof of that -- but a President who does not realize the instability of his wife is worrying.

H-Kerry is obviously crazy for thinking the election was stolen and you were right to point it out. Next you should put up a post discussing your position on the election reform initiative that Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton and other real Democrats proposed. This would be more constructive than sying the Democratic Party is against democracy because of something a Senator's idiot wife said. Your statement was only a bit less nutty and partisan than hers.

No more posting in moments of partisan wrath. As for the proposals put forth by Democrats haven't studied any of them in detail but I'd be in favor of a paper trail for the machines. Not having one will leave the results of every election open to question by conspiracy theorists.